SPORTS OF THE TIMES

SPORTS OF THE TIMES; BASEBALL PERSON STRIKES AGAIN

By Ira Berkow

Published: June 24, 1988

IN the Yankee Stadium team parking lot yesterday evening the cars were coming and going, going and coming, like in a movie with the reels reeling forward and then backward, backward into time.

After all, no manager and no coaches had been fired singly or wholesale by the Yankee principal owner in eight full months. Suddenly, all that changed. Jeff Torborg, the bullpen coach of the Yankees, drove his black Mustang into the team lot, parked the car, and crossed to the Stadium when someone said, ''Did you hear?'' ''Hear what?'' he asked. ''About the firings.''

''Him and Art Fowler and George Mitterwald - and Billy.'' ''Billy, too? Holy Christmas!'' It was true: those three coaches, and the gaunt, beleaguered manager, had all been ''offered reassigned responsibilities,'' as a Yankee press release would soon euphemistically report.

Shortly before this, Lou Piniella, the former Yankee manager and general manager, had driven in in his red Cadillac. He had seen Boyer in the parking lot and the two stood for a few minutes and talked. It appeared that, like many others, Piniella was just learning some news.

Then Piniella crossed the street to the Stadium. ''Sorry,'' he said to autograph seekers, ''gotta see Steinbrenner.''

Dave Righetti, the relief pitcher, came motoring in a little later in his black Bronco.

''You've got a new leader, Dave,'' someone said.

''Oh?'' replied Righetti. ''Did George quit?''

No. George Steinbrenner was still officially the principal owner and unofficially the Yankee Baseball Person. That is, he speaks of his ''baseball people'' making the baseball decisions. The fact is, it is singular, not plural. He does virtually all of it by his lonesome.

One of the reasons that Lou Piniella, axed as manager last October and now back again, had in fact recently resigned as general manager was because, driving one day in his car, he heard on the radio of a player move by the Yankees. He was the g.m. -and he knew nothing about it!

Out in the parking lot, more cars were coming in. None would pass Art Fowler's blue Beretta. Fowler, the pitching coach, had departed about an hour earlier, at about 3:30. He had arrived 15 minutes before that, and been told by the guard at the lot that Bob Quinn, the Yankee g.m. for a day - or is it a week? or a month? -wanted to see him.

''I'm gonna be gone,'' he said to someone nearby.

No prophet from Beersheba to the Bronx had ever seen the immediate future clearer.

Rickey Henderson, the left fielder, showed up in his gray Mercedes. Like the others, he hadn't heard anything until now.

''The whole staff,'' he said, about the firing, with a shrug. ''Guess we're gonna have to play by ourselves.''

It wasn't quite so, of course, since there was a new manager, and the Baseball Person chose two new coaches, known as Williams and Michael, who had been here before, in another reel.

Dave Winfield, noted diarist and best-selling author and star outfielder, parked his burgundy Mercedes, and was quickly informed of the news.

''Hmm,'' he said. ''This just adds another chapter.'' POSSIBLY this is good news for literature, though it may not be good news to a particular reader. A certain Baseball Person. The one who, by the record, is perhaps the single worst Baseball Person in baseball history at choosing personnel. He has fired more people on more levels faster than anyone else ever has, or had even thought about. It says a great deal about Baseball Person's alacrity, but perhaps much less about Baseball Person's acumen.

And maybe something about his impetuosity, or irritability. Consider: the Yankees, after having been in first place most of the season, dropped to second, two and a half games out. Yet, one may comprehend the need for possible panic. At the time that the Baseball Person opened his trap door and had the foursome fall, there were only 94 games left in the season.

Don Mattingly, the first baseman, wheeled in in his red BMW. When he heard the news, his first reaction was, ''So soon?'' How will this affect the team? ''The players gotta play,'' he said. ''The manager doesn't really have that much to do with it. Like Sparky Anderson once said, 'My biggest job as a manager is that I don't trip the players going down the runway.' ''

Coming out of the Stadium now, heading for the parking lot, and moving quickly, carrying a blue suitcase with the white Yankee ''NY'' insignia on it in one hand and a maroon suit bag in the other, was another figure. He was a stocky blond individual. ''Who are you?'' someone asked.

He identified himself as a Yankee batting-practice pitcher, but, in these dread times, refused to give his name.

He explained that, since the Yankees had just returned from a road trip, he was taking his luggage to his car, and that he had to hurry back to the clubhouse.